In Boston, 24 were taken into custody. In Manchester, England, 30,000 protesters marched in the streets. In Denver, protesters marched into the city chanting, "Occupy the streets." Occupy Chicago, still camped out in front of the Fed, has 5,000 Twitter followers, $1,100 in donations and more food than they can eat.
We hear hundreds, maybe thousands marched on Los Angeles City Hall yesterday and they're there again today. Occupy Seattle got a start yesterday with 100 protesters in Westlake Park. Occupy San Francisco is growing from a few people camping out to hundreds of marchers.
New campaigns are getting started: Occupy Maine kicked off on Saturday in Portland with an encampment in Monument Square. Occupy Asheville began with a 100-person march through downtown. A dozen protesters set up camp on the grassy median at the intersection of Riverside Avenue and Monroe Street in downtown Spokane. Occupy Portland plans a protest on Oct. 6.
The Boston Herald printed a great column by Margery Eagan today:
The Occupy Boston crowd had reached nearly 1,000 Friday night....Boston, in fact, had several modest protests this weekend. Twenty-four protesters were arrested peaceably Friday night at Bank of America’s front door. They were mad both about the bank’s foreclosures and its charging customers $5 per month to use bank-issued debit cards to get access to their own money.
Right to the City, a nationwide advocacy group for those with low incomes, planned a neighborhood sit-it yesterday at a Fowler Street home in Dorchester they claim was foreclosed on illegally by Deutsche Bank. Occupy Boston was planning an evening march to the Hynes convention center.
Something’s happening here and across the country, despite repeated dismissals of these protesters as the usual, disorganized and dizzy suspects in their “Arrest Bush and Cheney” T-shirts. They aren’t focused, critics say. They’re leaderless, tiny in numbers; a “bunch of spoiled brats” said the New York Daily News about the Occupy Wall Street protesters this week.
Well, I’ll take spoiled brats over the rest of us complacent sheep who just lie down and take what’s happened here.And don't miss Mark Ruffalo's column in the Guardian:
...these people have taken time out of their lives to stand up for values that are purely American and in the interest of our democracy. They forget that these people are encamped in an urban park, where they are not allowed to have tents or other normal camping gear. They are living far outside their comfort zone to protect and celebrate liberty, equality and the rule of law.Finally, here's how to send pizzas to the protesters.
